SoftBank Vision Fund's Deep Nishar is discussing leaving firm

SoftBank Vision Fund’s sole senior managing partner, Deep Nishar, is discussing leaving the firm, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Nishar, who’s based in the San Francisco Bay Area, joined SoftBank in 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile. Previously a lecturer at Stanford University, he also served as a senior vice president of products and user experience at LinkedIn, and before that, worked at Google. Nishar also has a strong technical background, co-authoring 14 patents, his biography on SoftBank’s website shows. He has held discussions regarding his potential departure, though nothing has been finalized, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private talks.

Nishar has been involved in more than three dozen of SoftBank’s bets, including 10X Genomics Inc., Guardant Health Inc., Slack Technologies Inc., Pear Therapeutics Inc. and Grofers, the firm’s website shows. There are only three executives at the fund who outrank Nishar, including Masayoshi Son, founder and chairman of SoftBank Group Corp.


A representative for SoftBank Investment Advisers, which oversees Vision Fund and Vision Fund 2, declined to comment. Nishar didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.